


Once Upon a Wintertime

by mnemosyne



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne/pseuds/mnemosyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It wasn't a remarkable book, at least, not to look at. Its cover was faded, the embossed letters of the title worn of any of their original gilt so that the only way to properly read it was to run the pads of your fingers over them and try to match them with any letter you knew. Gwen didn't need to do that, she knew the title, as she knew the whole book, entirely by heart. It had been her favourite companion since before she knew how to read; her father would read her all the stories in it in his soft, soothing voice. Gwen would curl up beside him and be lulled to sleep by tales of princesses and the smell of fire that still clung to her father's clothing. Once she had learned, she would read to him, first in a halting, apprehensive voice and then later in the unhurried tones of a woman greeting an old friend."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Wintertime

The story began, as stories are wont to do, with a book.

It wasn't a remarkable book, at least, not to look at. Its cover was faded, the embossed letters of the title worn of any of their original gilt so that the only way to properly read it was to run the pads of your fingers over them and try to match them with any letter you knew.

Gwen didn't need to do that, she knew the title, as she knew the whole book, entirely by heart. It had been her favourite companion since before she knew how to read; her father would read her all the stories in it in his soft, soothing voice. Gwen would curl up beside him and be lulled to sleep by tales of princesses and the smell of fire that still clung to her father's clothing. Once she had learned, she would read to him, first in a halting, apprehensive voice and then later in the unhurried tones of a woman greeting an old friend.

The day her father he passed away, a fatal combination of a place he should never have been in, and a time he would never usually have been there, Gwen took herself up to her attic room, away from the bustle of well-meaning and too-loud relatives, and opened the book for the first time in years. For an hour she let nothing intrude on her thoughts but the archaic poetry of her folktales. The knights, she felt, must have looked something like her father.

It was late, and the stars were just about visible through the dusty attic window when Gwen finally stretched out, closed the book on her knees. Her head rested against the wooden wall and she stared out, tracing Orion in the night sky.

"Are you all right?"

The voice was unexpected, but not unwelcome, as so many had been during that day. Gwen quirked her mouth into a small smile, and shifted her legs, welcoming the intruder into her personal getaway.

"Fine," she said, in the voice that meant she knew that they both knew she was lying, "Have you been there long?"

"About ten minutes." Long arms extended over the attic floor and Merlin pulled himself gracelessly onto the floor, hefting out clouds of dust that Gwen was sure he must have imported - she vacuumed that floor daily. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Not really," Gwen confessed with a sigh. She leaned sideways, let Merlin's long limbs arrange themselves in as comfortable a situation as possible beside her. "I guess I don't really know how I'm supposed to act."

"I don't think you're supposed to do anything," said Merlin. "Except maybe sit there and let other people feed you tuna bake."

"I don't actually like tuna," replied Gwen. Merlin smiled, and twirled a strand of her hair in his fingers.

"It's the only thing I know how to cook," he told her. "So I brought you a Pizza Express menu and my mobile phone instead."

***

Three months after her father died, Gwen moved in with Merlin in a small flat five minutes away from the Tooting Broadway tube station. She took seven cases, a desk chair, her laptop and the book of legends packed carefully into her bag. 

It hadn't been easy, leaving her father's house, but she couldn't afford the rent on her own and besides, Merlin had only just moved out on his own - she couldn't envision the chaos that would be caused if she let him live alone.

The first night she was there, the cases remained packed, piled haphazardly in her room, and she and Merlin fell into a takeaway-heavy sleep to the strains of Peep Show from his intermittently working television.

In the morning, Merlin was tucked up at her feet, pale and panda-eyed, and his long fingers curled around her book. His mouth formed the words as he read and he peered at the pages so intently that Gwen could not help but smile fondly. Leaning forwards, she stroked a finger down his chin and Merlin looked up, startled, before yawning and opening his arm to welcome Gwen snuggling down into his shoulder.

"Sometimes I think you only started speaking to me because of this book," he said, tapping the yellow pages gently. Gwen considered his words for a moment.

"Sometimes I think I did."

***

_"I'm Merlin," the boy says, and Gwen nearly spits her drink back into her glass. She looks at him quizzically, but it is Morgaine who replies to him._

_"Merlin? Like the wizard?" The boy shrugs, runs a hand through his hair and offers a shy smile to the girls._

_"Don't ask me," he says, "I didn't get much of a choice in the matter."_

_Morgaine smiles toothily at the boy, her expression the blank friendliness of a beautiful woman tired of men hitting on her in a bar. She turns back to her red wine and studies the menu, dismissing him with no more needing to be said. Merlin bites his lip, but does not move. Perhaps it is pity, or perhaps it is her loyalty to an old story, but Gwen finds herself sighing and raises her glass to clink against his._

_"Guinevere," she says and dares him to say anything about it. Merlin lets out a surprised laugh._

_"I think we're going to be friends," he tells her in a stage whisper. Morgaine taps her nails against the starters, evidently torn between the dolmades and the tiger prawns._

_At the bar, a vaguely familiar blond haired young man gestures impatiently at Merlin and the boy rolls his eyes so that Gwen can see what his friend can't._

_"I've been summoned," he says, and turns to go, "it was nice to meet you."_

_"You too."_

_"See you around, yeah, Guinevere?"_

_"Gwen," she allows, "and maybe you will."_

_When the boy leaves, Morgaine leans her shoulder on Gwen's and without looking at her, nudges gently._

_"So he wasn't bad," she says, "despite the unfortunate name."_

_"No, he wasn't," says Gwen, a little wistfully, eyes following her new friend and his companion as they clatter out of the bar, arguing about something she can't hear._

_"If he's Rupert's friend, you'll most likely see him again at the party next week."_

_Gwen remembers where she knew the blond man from - Rupert, Morgaine's cousin. She's only met him the once, a couple of years ago, and remembers him trying to introduce himself with some other name, long-forgotten now. He's rich, she remembers, and lives alone in a massive three bedroom flat overlooking the river. Morgaine has spent many hours bitching about "people whose fathers just pay for everything and never have to work a day in their lives". Gwen has loyally never pointed out that Rupert's uncle bought Morgaine's pillarbox red Mini for her nineteenth birthday, or that she hadn't actually needed to apply for a loan for her degree in Parapsychology._

_The following week, Gwen and Merlin get very drunk on the balcony whilst a messy party rages within, and spend quite a lot of time the next day arguing about who scrawled the words "Rupertque futurus" (Gwen points out that Merlin knows Latin, Merlin parries with the fact that he doesn't own any makeup) onto Rupert's window with lipstick. Gwen thinks it's pretty unlikely to turn into a romantic conquest, but she's almost certain she's met her soulmate._

***

In the February after she moved in with Merlin, Gwen came down with what she was sure was just a cold, but he insisted was flu. He had moved the coffee machine from the kitchen to her bedroom and spent all the time he wasn't at work popping his head in and asking her if she needed anything. The seventeenth time this had happened, Gwen had thrown her old stuffed rabbit at him and looked for another missile. Her fingers had closed around the alarm clock, and she had pointedly glanced from it to Merlin a couple of times before he had gotten the message and left her alone.

She regretted sending him away now; it was eight o clock and the house was quiet. Merlin had called something up about his friend Gavin and a bar fight before he left, but since then, there had been barely any traffic on the roads and Gwen was forced to listen to the sound of her own rattling breathing. It was almost a relief when the doorbell rang.

Slowly, Gwen forced her aching limbs out of the bed. Pulling on an old dressing gown, she coughed and padded, wincing down the stairs. The doorbell rang again as her hand closed on the latch and she pulled it open before her visitor had a chance to remove his hand from the buzzer.

"Rupert!" she said with surprise. The young man stood there with a box of chocolates and a supermarket carrier bag. He raised an eyebrow.

"You look terrible," he told her, "Can I come in?"

With a moment's hesitation, that she hoped that he hadn't noticed, Gwen pulled the door wider. Though they saw each other almost weekly, they hadn't really spoken at length before, their only real social interaction via Merlin or Morgaine, and of the people she didn't expect to turn up at her door, Rupert was up there with Gandhi and DCI Gene Hunt.

"Morgaine told me to come," Rupert admitted, noting Gwen's surprise. "Not that I wasn't sorry to hear you were ill, of course."

"Can I get you anything - tea, coffee, hot chocolate-"

"Tea, thanks," the young man interrupted and flopped down onto the sofa. Gwen sighed and bustled as quickly as she could with limbs that felt like they were made from marshmallows into the kitchen. 

The kettle was halfway boiled when Rupert poked his head into the kitchen, a look of consternation on his face.

"I should be getting you tea!" he announced as if he had just thought of it, and Gwen couldn't help herself before breaking out into giggles. When Rupert's expression morphed into one of perplexed irritation at being laughed at, she had to laugh harder, though it soon turned into a cough. His face softened at once.

"Go sit down, I'll finish this," he told her. Gwen nodded, eyes streaming.

"There's sugar in the cupboard next to the fridge," she rasped. Rupert waved her away with a regal sweep of his hand. 

"Go. Sit."

Ten minutes later, the pair of them were sat on opposite ends of the sofa, not speaking. Gwen pursed her lips, blowing on the hot tea.

"Thank you," she said,"for this."

"No problem," Rupert swirled the tea in his own mug. Silence reigned.

"How's the job?" she asked, trying to remember exactly what it was he did again. Something to do with money. Rupert shrugged. 

"It's a job," he replied. "I suppose there's a million things I'd rather be doing."

"Like what?"

Rupert started, and looked over at Gwen. He smiled a little; Gwen had never noticed how lovely he looked when he smiled. He was more open, somehow younger and older, all at the same time.

"I want to change the world," he said. "I'm not sure you can do that sitting behind a desk."

"I don't know," replied Gwen, "I suppose it depends on what desk you're sitting behind."

Rupert snorted, and shivered, his face closing off again and Gwen knew he'd shared more than he'd intended to. She watched him look around the room, most likely that he was looking for something to change the subject. His eyes closed on an old, ragged book next to the television.

"What's that?" he asked. Gwen unfurled, reached out to pick it up and handed it over. 

"Book of legends - my father taught me to read from it."

"I learnt from Spot the Dog," said Rupert, "this looks more complicated."

He turned the pages with more care than Gwen would have credited him with and began to read the first page out loud. Gwen closed her eyes briefly, only opening them again when he had finished the first paragraph. Rupert was looking at her strangely.

"It's my favourite book," she told him, "I know it by heart."

"It's a good story," he agreed. He leaned his head against the back of the sofa and stared off into space. "I used to like it too - saw that film when I was a kid." He laughed softly. "I always liked that there was a hero who shared my name."

Gwen frowned, "But-".

"Arthur," he said. "Rupert's just a nickname Morgaine gave me - like Rupert Bear?" He flushed a little, before continuing in an explanatory tone. "We were very young and she read _a lot_."

"Arthur," repeated Gwen, studying him. "You know, you do look like an Arthur."

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

A thought occurred to her and she began to giggle again, giggle until it turned into guffaws and then coughs and then back into a full- if scratchy - throated chuckle.

"What?" asked Arthur. Gwen shook her head, unable to reply. She scrabbled around next to the sofa for her handbag, and extracted her purse. With her thumb, she flicked it open and handed him her driving license. He looked down and then back at her.

"This," he said at last, "finally explains half of the jokes Merlin has been making for the last year."

***

_In a bar in Camden, Merlin clinks a glass of something against his friend's. Gavin downs his and slams the glass back down onto the bar._

_"You really think they'll hit it off? She's a nice girl - and I don't see Morgaine letting him get that close. I'd lay money on her threatening his life if he hurts her girl."_

_"Of course they will," says Merlin. Gavin waves at a pretty girl in half a dress._

_"If you say it's destiny, I'm going to thump you." he informs Merlin._

_The wizard merely smiles and orders another beer._


End file.
